Dramatic Increase in Poverty Rate: One Small Step for Obama, One Giant Step for the So-Called War on Poverty

There are now a record number of poor people in America, and the poverty rate has jumped to 15.1 percent.

But I don’t really blame President Obama for these grim numbers. Yes, he’s increased the burden of government, which doubtlessly has hindered the economy’s performance and made things worse, but the White House crowd legitimately can argue that they inherited a crummy situation.

What’s really striking, if we look at the chart, is that the poverty rate in America was steadily declining. But then, once President Lyndon Johnson started a “War on Poverty,” that progress came to a halt.

As I’ve explained before, the so-called War on Poverty has undermined economic progress by trapping people in lives of dependency. And this certainly is consistent with the data in the chart, which show that the poverty rate no longer is falling and instead bumps around between 12 percent and 15 percent.

This is bad news for poor people, of course, but it’s also bad news for taxpayers. The federal government, which shouldn’t have any role in the field of income redistribution, has squandered trillions of dollars on dozens of means-tested programs. And they’ve arguably made matters worse.

By the way, just in case you think I’m being too easy on Obama, read this post about how the Administration is considering a terrible plan to re-define poverty in order to justify ever-larger amounts of redistribution.

I fully agree that he President’s policies definitely have made – and will continue to make – matters worse. But the fundamental problem is 40-plus years of a misguided “War on Poverty” by the federal government.

[…] As we get deeper into an election season, many politicians feel compelled to discuss how to deal with poverty. And some of them may even be serious about trying to improve the system. This hopefully will lead to big-picture discussions of key issues, such as why the poverty rate stopped falling in the mid-1960s. […]

Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Heard from someone online of her conversation with a person who thought the War on Poverty was going great until Reagan was elected. Looks like some hard facts are in order.

[…] government in the business of redistributing income. We’ll get much better results, both for poor people and taxpayers, if state and local government compete and innovate to figure out the best ways of […]

[…] you can make a very persuasive case that government intervention has backfired since the poverty rate was falling before the federal government got involved. Yet now that Washington is paying people to be poor, […]

[…] Probably the most damning evidence is that the poverty rate in America was steadily falling after World War II. But then Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty” and got Washington more involved in the business of income redistribution. So what happened? The poverty rate stopped falling. […]

[…] Probably the most damning evidence is that the poverty rate in America was steadily falling after World War II. But then Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty” and got Washington more involved in the business of income redistribution. So what happened? The poverty rate stopped falling. […]

[…] undo the welfare state not only because that reform would be good for taxpayers, but also because the so-called War on Poverty is bad for poor people. Redistribution creates long-run dependency because of a poverty trap that makes it more difficult […]

[…] undo the welfare state not only because that reform would be good for taxpayers, but also because the so-called War on Poverty is bad for poor people. Redistribution creates long-run dependency because of a poverty trap that makes it more difficult […]

[…] undo the welfare state not only because that reform would be good for taxpayers, but also because the so-called War on Poverty is bad for poor people. Redistribution creates long-run dependency because of a poverty trap that makes it more difficult […]

[…] We’re making a tiny bit of progress in the battle against the welfare state. No, policy hasn’t changed yet, but at least there’s growing recognition that maybe, just maybe, it’s not a good idea to pay people not to work. Particularly when you trap them in lives of dependency and despair and undermine progress in the fight against poverty. […]

[…] 3. More welfare spending – The report complains that “cash transfer programmes…reduce poverty…less than in other OECD countries” and suggests that “government should restore the inequality-reducing power of the transfer system.” Since welfare spending in the United States is at record levels, it’s unclear what the bureaucrats mean by “restore,” but it’s quite clear that they want more spending on programs that have undermined the fight against poverty. […]

[…] poor household in America. And what are we getting for that giant expenditure of money? Well, as this other chart shows, our progress in the fight against poverty came to a screeching halt right about the time that the […]

[…] most. We have decades of experience showing that redistribution programs create dependency and trap people in lives of despair. Rate this: Share this:PrintEmailFacebookTwitterMoredeliciousDiggFarkLinkedInRedditStumbleUponLike […]

I find it interesting that the poverty rate declined the fastest right after John F. Kennedy’s income tax cuts were implemented in 1962-63 (the tax cuts were JFK’s only great accomplishment); the decline tapered off after 1965, when LBJ’s Great Society spending skyrocketed (and LBJ and the Democrats wasted money making our soldiers fight in Vietnam WITHOUT letting them win); the poverty rate remaind stagnant or increased after 1969 when government regulations by Democrat Congresses and unelected bureaucrats increased exponentially; and the poverty only began declining again after Ronald Reagan’s income tax cuts were fully implemented, and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had reversed the destructive “loose money” policies of previous Fed Chairmen Arthur Burns and G. William Miller. (Jimmy Carter’s only great accomplishment was accepting the resignation of his appointee Miller and replacing him with Volcker).

[…] biggest victims, on the other hand, are the less fortunate people who get trapped in lives of dependency and despair. Rate this: Share this:PrintEmailFacebookTwitterMoredeliciousDiggFarkLinkedInRedditStumbleUponLike […]

[…] The video has a plethora of useful information, but the data on the poverty rate is particularly compelling. Prior to the War on Poverty, the United States was getting more prosperous with each passing year and there were dramatic reductions …. […]

[…] The video has a plethora of useful information, but the data on the poverty rate is particularly compelling. Prior to the War on Poverty, the United States was getting more prosperous with each passing year and there were dramatic reductions …. […]

A correction: I meant: The American poor OFTEN have air conditioning, several rooms in their houses, two cars. Of course not all American “poor” have those luxuries.

In Latin America we have tens millions of people who cannot eat a piece of meat every day. When you see that Brazil has a criminal Value Added Tax rate that can add to 47% you understand that the political classes are the cause of almost any major problem whose solution we know (And the solution is reducing the outrageous power of the political class has )

I bet that the “poor” are much much better off today than during Johnson Presidency.

Mr. Dan Mitchell said once that the political class needed “poor” people to “justify” their programs. I do not remember exactly what Mr. Mitchell said but it was something like that

Are those “poor” actually poor? I read Understanding Poverty in America (mentioned by Tom in these comments) and when you read that paper you reach the conclusion that the American “poor” are not much worse than the Swedish “middle class”. (Sweden is a tax hell and leftists often allege that Sweden is paradise on earth)

By Latin American standards the American “poor” are upper middle class. They have air conditioning, several rooms in their houses, often more than one car, luxuries that only upper middle class Latin Americans usually have and luxuries that many western Europeans do not have. Oh yeah, evil Americans are destroying the earth with co2 emissions caused by their high standard of living, I forgot that part of the leftist dogma (But co2 is plant food as any high school student knows)

For leftists Sweden is the “peoples paradise”. In Latin America we have our tax hell: It is Cuba. But now when anybody says that Cuba is “The Socialist Paradise” a lot of people Roll On The Floor Laughing.

You used 1968, the year LBJ left office, as the beginning of the “War on Poverty.” This is false. The War on Poverty was declared by Johnson in his 1964 State of the Union. The sharp decline in poverty from 64-68 occurred during the height of LBJ’s Great Society programs. The decline in poverty bottomed out when Nixon took office and began rolling back some of LBJ’s policies, and poverty got noticeably worse during Reagan’s assault on government. So it seems this graph doesn’t quite show what you think it does.